


knights and students and smiles

by Murf1307



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, smiling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marius is Courfeyrac's overly serious roommate.  Courfeyrac tries to make him smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	knights and students and smiles

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this](http://bloggish.tumblr.com/post/54740144072/okay-but-why-dont-we-have-a-gratuitously-cute-fic) tumblr post

When Courfeyrac meets his freshman-year roommate, and his first though is, “Jesus Christ, he’s serious.”

Courf can handle that, though — he’s best friends with two of the most serious people on the face of the planet — and it’s not like Marius Pontmercy is  _overtly_  a buzzkill.

He’s more like…like he’s not sure how the whole concept of  _fun_  works.  Like he’s never had it before.

So, Courfeyrac, being the  _excellent_  roommate that he is, decides to educate him.

—————

 

This proves harder than expected.  Apparently, Marius Pontmercy is  _really intent_  on keeping his full ride, because he refuses to ask for a stitch of help from his grandfather (who, from what little Marius has said of him, sounds like a grade-A douchecanoe).  So Marius spends most of his time studying.

And Courfeyrac studies with him.  Sort of.  They share a class, anyway, and they both go, and Courfeyrac kind of sits there while Marius studies, glancing over Marius’s meticulous, nearly  _transcriptionist_  notes.

Seriously, he’s kind of scary.

Finally, three weeks into the semester, Courfeyrac says, “You wanna go have dinner?  You’ve been staring at that for like, the last two hours.”

Marius looks up at him, confused for a moment.  He frowns, but it’s directed inward, then he nods.  ”All right.”

So they go to the cafeteria.  It’s not much different from any other time, except it’s much later than they’d usually be going to dinner, so the cafeteria is pretty much dead.  Just him and Marius and a couple of scattered loners.

Normally, Courfeyrac would be asking basically everyone to come sit with them, because that’s what he does, but he doesn’t feel like doing that tonight.

They split up to get food, and then meet up again at a corner booth.

"So, you making any headway?  It looked like you were just giving yourself a head _ache_  like that.”  Courfeyrac will admit he’s concerned.  Because he knows what burnout looks like (hello, second semester, junior year of highschool and the time Enjolras literally passed out after the APs were over), and he doesn’t want Marius to get that far.

Marius hmmfs a little, like he thinks it’s funny but isn’t sure if he should laugh.  ”It was starting to not make sense, I’ll give you that.”

"Looks like I rescued you from a hell of boredom," Courfeyrac says, grinning and half-bowing.

"You, a knight in shining armor, rescuing poor college students from the demons of Too Much Studying?"  Marius says, and it’s like there’s a smile trying to get out.

Courfeyrac’s grin widens.  ”Students in distress are my specialty; some knights prefer saving virginal maiden princesses from dragons — I set my standards a little higher,” he says, voice sliding a little slyly over the last clause.

And that does it.  Marius starts laughing, and  _smiling_.

Courfeyrac would be doing his internal fist pump of triumph, but he’s too busy being completely  _enthralled._

Because Marius, Marius has a face made for smiling.  He’s an all right looking guy when he’s frowning — nice eyes, pale-eyed and freckled, and that’s all right — but smiling, smiling, he’s radiant.

It pushes his cheeks up and bares his teeth and crinkles at his eyelids and he almost looks bashful as he does it.

Courfeyrac keeps smiling, too, and in the back of his mind thinks:

 _Oh, I am_ so _fucked._


End file.
